Go to Part 1

TALISOLVANAR “TALLY” FELLBRANCH

Appearance: Half-elf with short brown hair in a simple bowl-cut. Large blue eyes. Wears a leather vest with small tools in its many pockets.

Roleplaying:

• Strong handshake.
• Very sarcastic.
• Rubs the tops of his ears as a nervous habit.

Background:

• Owner and chief artisan of the Bent Nail, located at the eastern end of Trollskull Alley (DH p. 32).
• Brother to Mellannor Fellbranch, the groundskeeper of the Phaulkonmere and representative of the Emerald Enclave (DH p. 35).

Stats: Commoner (MM p. 345)

• Chaotic Good
• Racial Traits: Advantage vs. charmed. Immune to magical sleep. Darkvision to 60 ft.
• Languages: Common, Elvish.

EMBRIC

Appearance: Flaming red skin with fiery red hair that writhes under extreme emotion. Eyes flare red when angry.

Roleplaying:

• Prone to extreme mood swings.
• Hair does a twirling dance (often intermingling with Avi’s) when drunk.
• Voice sounds like crackling flames.
• A faint scent of brimstone when he burps.

Background:

• Married to Avi. Co-owner of Steam and Steel, located at the eastern end of Trollskull Alley (DH p. 32). Tends the forge and is an expert weaponsmith.
• Belongs to the Most Careful Order of Skilled Smiths and Metalforgers.
• Claims descent from the efreet of Calimshan.

Stats: Bandit Captain (MM p. 344)

• Neutral Good
• Racial Traits: Cast produce flame at will (Constitution spellcasting ability, +4 bonus to hit with spells). Darkvision 60 ft. Resistance to fire.
• Languages: Common, Primordial

AVI

Appearance: Blue skin with beads of moisture twinkling upon it, with large, blue-black eyes. Smells of fresh rain. His blue hair floats freely, swaying and waving as if underwater. Wears miniature, animate waterfall (holy symbol of Eldath).

Roleplaying:

• Big, beaming smile.
• Rests his hand gently on Embric’s arm to help him control his emotions.
• When drunk, speaks like a whale.

Background:

• Married to Embric. Co-owner of Steam and Steel, located at the eastern end of Trollskull Alley (DH p. 32). Uses his magic to quench hot steel.
• Belongs to the Splendid Order of Armorers, Locksmiths, and Finesmiths.
• Worships Eldath, god of peace.

Stats: Priest (MM p. 348)

• Neutral Good
• Racial Traits: At will, control 5 ft. cube of water or freeze water for 1 hour. Swim 30 ft. Breathe air and water. Resistance to acid.

Languages: Common, Primordial

FALA LEFALIIR

Appearance: Wood elf with long, braided, coppery hair. A sprig of mistletoe woven into their hair above the right ear.

Roleplaying:

• If referred to as “he” or “she,” politely asks to be addressed as “they.”
• Offers up various herbal remedies to any problems (physical, social, etc.) people may be suffering from.

Background:

• Owns Corellon’s Crown, across Trollskull Alley from Trollskull Manor (DH p. 32).
• Member of the Guild of Apothecaries and Physicians.
• Friends with Ziraj, a Zhentarim who saved their life. (He visits Fala from time to time and Fala has set aside a room for him on the second floor of the Corellon’s Crown. See faction mission, DH p. 38.)

Stats: Druid (MM p. 346)

• Chaotic Good
• Racial Traits: Advantage vs. charmed. Immune to magical sleep. Speed 35 ft. Darkvision 60 ft.
• Languages: Common, Druidic, Elvish

VINCENT TRENCH

Appearance: Dresses in a sharp suit and smokes a slim pipe. Black hair with a streak of silver that hangs foppishly over his brow.

Roleplaying:

• Speaks concisely.
• Arches an eyebrow inquisitively.
• Puffs on his pipe thoughtfully.

Background:

• Private eye who runs the Tiger’s Eye, located towards the western end of Trollskull Alley (DH p. 32).
• Actually a rakshasa named Valantajar; uses disguise self before speaking to visitors or emerging into public (DC 18 on Intelligence (Investigation) check to detect). The spells lasts for 1 hour, so he notably excuses himself at such intervals.
• Investigations: 50 gp sufficient for most investigations, but if it’s a significant task (investigating major factions, for example), Trench might require a service in payment, such as slaying enemies that are hunting it, posting advertisements for its business in their tavern, or keeping tabs on someone he’s been hired to spy on.

Stats: Rakshasa (MM p. 257)

RISHAAL THE PAGE-TURNER

Appearance: Gold dragonborn. Pince-nez glasses at the end of his snout.

Roleplaying:

• Bookish, but with a deep, gravelly voice.
• Taps fingers of his hands together nervously.
• Small curls of smoke emerge from his nostrils when happy.

Background:

• Owns the Book Wyrm’s Treasure at the western end of Trollskull Alley (DH p. 33).
• Knew Lif, the former owner of Trollskull Manor, and arranged for the sale of his modest library after he passed.

Stats: Mage (MM p. 347)

• Neutral
• Racial Traits: Exhale 15-ft. cone of fire once per rest (2d6 fire damage; DC 10 Dexterity save for half damage). Resistance to fire.
• Languages: Common, Draconic, Dwarvish, Elvish

HAMMOND KRADDOC

Appearance: A rather portly gentleman dressed in a fine silk doublet with a fashionable dress coat of displacer beast fur. He has a thin moustache that angles down sharply, only to gently curl back up by the slightest of degrees.

• Always accompanied by Jinny (NG female tiefling commoner) who wears spectacles and silently records notes and conversations in a small book as Hammond speaks.

Roleplaying Notes:

• Sniffs at a perfumed handkerchief.
• Doesn’t like adventurers, but does like their coin.
• Warms up considerably (dropping most of his effete affectations) if engaged knowledgably by a fellow aficionado of wine and liqueurs.

Background:

• He was once the owner of the Elysium Fields, a vineyard south of Waterdeep. The Elysium Fields were destroyed when a group of adventurers ended up fighting a black dragon in the middle of them. Even if he could have rebuilt, the dragon’s acidic breath had permanently altered the Ph balance of the soil.
• He came to Waterdeep and joined the Vintners’, Distillers’, and Brewers’ Guild, using his vast knowledge of viticulture and personal connections to “improve the general fare of consumption in the city of splendors.”
• Gave Lord Dagult large bribes to cover up a scandal involving contaminated liquor in the Dock Ward (see Lord Dagult’s Papers).

Key Info:

• Representative of the Vintners’, Distillers’, and Brewers’ Guild.
• His guild offers a wide range of plans for a new establishment’s base selection of liquor and beer (ranging from 50 gp for a few very common selections all the way to 1,000 gp or more for a truly exotic selection).

Stats: N male Illuskan human commoner (MM p. 345)

BROXLEY FAIRKETTLE

Appearance: A laid-back halfing with mutton chops and bushy eyebrows.

Roleplaying Notes:

• Strongly urges membership in the Fellowship of Innkeepers’ to “avoid further harassment.”
• Relates everything back to the lamentable burdens of being a father of nine.
• Scratches his cheek thoughtfully.

Background:

• Broxley came to Waterdeep as a refugee when he was just a wee young hin. His father and mother had fled Secomber when it was overrun by the Urshani hobgoblins in the 1470’s.
• Broxley started as a scuttle-boy for the local taverns. He eventually worked his way up through the kitchens until he finally came to own a tavern of his own, the Barefoot Boards (which is scaled for and caters almost exclusively to halflings).
• Broxley often supported other tavern owners in the area (many of whom he had worked with or for over the years), and he was elected as the new North Ward representative of the Fellowship of Innkeepers’ a few years back.

Key Info:

• North Ward representative of the Fellowship of Innkeepers’. (Inns and taverns are few and far between in the North Ward, so he makes frequent visits.)
• Has long believed Trollskull Manor to be haunted.

Stats: LG male strongheart halfling commoner (MM p. 345)

ULKORIA STONEMARROW

Appearance: A female dwarf whose face has been frozen in a terrible, almost horrifying rictus.

• Never seen without her shield guardian (MM p. 271) nearby.

Roleplaying Notes:

• A permanent scowl inflicted by some unknown cause.
• But incredibly friendly and personable; like everyone’s favorite grandmother.
• Occasionally gets a distant look in her eyes, waggles her fingers, and will murmur something like, “That’s better.” under her breath. (It’s unclear if she’s pulling people’s legs with this routine.)

Background:

• Nicknamed the “Gargoyle” due to the horrible scowl frozen on her face. Frightens children and adults alike.
• No one knows where she lives, but it’s believed to be underground, possibly a cellar or a dungeon under one of the city’s oldest estates. (She uses teleport spells to enter and leave her home.)
• Once owned Trollskull Manor. She sold it to a family of shield dwarves who fell on hard times and sold it to a woman who made it into an orphanage. The woman, Arissa Mirthkettle, turned out to be a hag who was cooking and eating the children. It was then abandoned for many years before being acquired by a half-elf named Lif. Lif, for his part, was killed in a terrible accident when one of the support beams on his ale casks broke and collapsed on top of him.

Key Info:

• Used to own Trollskull Manor. Hopes the new owners make something good of it.
• Charges 300 gp for castings of glyphs of warding.

Stats: NG female shield dwarf archmage (MM p. 342)

MATTRIM “THREESTRINGS” MEREG

Appearance: Lanky brown hair hangs down around a face more plain than handsome. He wears gaudy clothes of purple and green, and carries a badly scarred lute that only has three strings left to its name.

Roleplaying Notes:

• Talks about how difficult it is to play [insert song name] on just three strings!
• A goofy, lop-sided smile.
• Breaks into song (and it really is quite good).

Background:

• Plays a lute that only has three strings remaining.
• Hides his true musical skills to maintain a low profile.

Key Info:

• A Harper spy who uses his busking gigs to cover his intelligence-gathering operations.
• Works with Cal’al Claddani, a half-drow Harper agent who works in the Flagon and the Dragon in Skullport.
• Knows about a Harper hideout called Dalagor’s Fortress, overseen by a dragonborn mage named Felrax, in the uppermost level of Skullport.
• Has befriended Bonnie the Doppelganger and wants to help her and her gang settle into the city.

Stats: LG male Illluskan human bard (DH p. 195)

JALESTER SILVERMANE

Appearance: A middle-aged man with thinning brown hair. Wears a loose doublet and pants of dark silver-grey. A lean, gaunt strength.

Roleplaying Notes:

• Lonely (after the death of his boyfriend) and looking for love.

Background:

• Hails from Cormyr, where he was a member of the Steel Shadows mercenary company.
• Left the Dales with several members of the company, including his boyfriend, Faerrel Dunblade, and came to Waterdeep.
• Faerral and Jalester befriended Elminster, who brought them to the attention of Laeral Silverhand.
• Faerral Dunblade, was killed in a street fight last year.

Key Info:

• Captain of the City Watch.
• Secret agent of the Lords’ Alliance who reports directly to Open Lord Laeral Silverhand.
• Charged with spying on adventurers to determine whether they can aid or will imperil the city.
• Can get the location of Xanathar’s Lair from Laeral Silverhand.

Stats: DH p. 205

YAGRA STONEFIST

Appearance: Seven-foot-tall half-orc with purplish-gray skin, a tousled mop of black hair, and shapely tusks to either side of her mouth. She wears well-kept leather armor and has a simple sword strapped to her side. She wears a large pendant of red jade, seared with the winged-serpent sigil of the Zhentarim.

Roleplaying Notes:

• Likes challenging adventurers to arm wrestle.
• Cracks her knuckles.
• Incredibly hostile towards slavers and Xanatharians.

Background:

• Yagra was rescued from slavers by the Doom Raiders. She and Ziraj the Hunter dated briefly, but it didn’t really work out. By the time they broke up, however, the Doom Raiders had joined the Black Network and moved to Waterdeep to take over the local Zhentarim.

Key Info:

• Zhentarim mercenary working for the Doom Raiders.
• Intermittently works as Davil Starsong’s bodyguard.
• Knows a “back door” into Xanathar’s Lair.

Stats: N female half-orc thug (MM p. 390)

• 1/long rest, when reduced to 0 hit points, drops to 1 hit point instead.
• Darkvision 60 ft.
• Languages: Common, Orc

Go to Part 6: Renaer’s Friends

Go to Part 1

PATRON TOPICS/AGENDAS

TALLY FELLBRANCH

• Introduces PCs to his brother, Melannor Fellbranch (representative of the Emerald Enclave).
• Offers his services to sculpt a wooden troll’s skull that could be displayed on the wall.
• She’s been commissioned to craft 8-foot-tall chess pieces for the Cragsmere Estate. It’s a major commission and she buys a round of drinks for everyone in the tavern to celebrate.

EMBRIC & AVI

• One of the Three Urchins has been shoplifting small metal trinkets from Steam and Steel.
• Ask for an introduction to Renaer Neverember. (Turns out Embric and Avi were stout supporters of Lord Dagult and expect his son to feel the same.)
• They’ve been hired to build a number of weapons of strange designs; serrated edges on odd surfaces, superfluous spikes, and the like. (Investigating this reveals that the commission can be tracked back to Grinda Garloth.)

FALA LEFALIIR

• Offers the PCs a sampler of foreign teas, in the interest of having them added to the menu.
• Introduces the PCs to Ziraj the Hunter, a member of the Zhentarim Doom Raiders (DH p. 201).
• Is interested in using the large oak tree outside Trollskull Manor as a place to grow silverbark, a valuable alchymical that they have otherwise been harvesting from the City of the Dead.

VINCENT TRENCH

• Meeting a client. (Either a simple member of the public, or possibly one of the other notable patrons in the tavern.)
• Looking to hire the PCs to contribute to one of his investigations: He needs a foppish young noble (Adric Thongolir, a half-steel dragon and youngest son of Lady Adiira Thongolir) followed.
• Vincent has been hired to investigate a series of petty thefts in Thundercross Alley (running perpendicular to Thunderstaff Way just north of Sashtar Street). A man named Irbyth Authamaun has had a particularly valuable gray jade statuette of a stone giant stolen from his house (which lies at the eastern end of the alley). (The culprit is a small, floating, magical skull named Mortaunto. The curious undead rapscallion has created a small nest of his magpie-like thefts in the Thunderstaff Villa, which lies just north of Thundercross Alley.)

RISHAAL THE PAGE-TURNER

• Sits quietly in one corner, sipping tea and reading an oddly titled book: Duke Avanice’s Vile Poems, Cults of Ancient Netheril, Umbral Reflections on the Kingdom of Man, The Journal of Captain Arienthil’s Journeys in the Moonshae Isles, Memories of Kara-Tur, The Seventh Codex of the Numinous Ascendants of Kaal, The Atlas of Forgotten Cartographies.
• If Lif has been pacified and is now part of the tavern’s culture, Rishaal will stop by with a copy of Richelle’s Poems, a book of elvish poetry which was once one of Lif’s favorites.
• His hands are bandaged. He came into possession of a cursed book that, when he touched it, caused his hands to burst out into boils.

HAMMOND KRADDOC (Vintners’)

• Dropping by to let the owners know about new spirits his guild has to offer: Blackberry seawine from the Nasaqh Estates on Mount Sar. Berg Brew, an alchemically frozen slurry that has ten times the alcoholic content of other beers. Entsap, brewed from the sap of treants. Storm Giant Ale, which is not actually bewed by storm giants but does have an electrical “tingle.”
• Chastises the owners for their current selection of beverages (even if he was the one who sold them).
• Discovers that Lif knew his father, Barbaros Kraddoc. Barbaros would actually stay at Trollskull Manor when he would come into Waterdeep to sell wines from the Elysium Fields. (Lif is saddened to learn that the Elysium Fields were destroyed.)

BROXLEY FAIRKETTLE (Innkeepers’)

• Asks the PCs to host the guild’s Leiruin Feast. (Extrapolate event from DH p. 162.)
• Offers to sell them a signatory license to the Fellowship of Innkeepers’ indemnification insurance for 20 gp per month: It covers the costs of any lawsuits held against them or their tavern due to injuries incurred during a stay. (He relates how the previous year a spice merchant nearly bankrupted an inn who didn’t have insurance when a magister held them liable for not only the magical healing of his injuries, but also for his lost wages during a period of physical and emotional recovery.)
• Dues for the Fellowship of Innkeepers are increasing by 5 gp per month starting on the first of next month.

ULKORIA STONEMARROW

• Relates the history of Trollskull Tavern, starting from the time of her ownership.
• She comes in hauling the carcass of a rust monster.
• Shield guardian shows up, but Ulkoria isn’t with it.

MATTREM “THREEESTRINGS” MEREG

• Looking for employment; or just permission to play for tips if that fails. (Yawning Portal is a little too intense for him this week.)
• He brings Bonnie the Doppelganger here to have a date. It turns into a complete disaster. (He might beg one of the PCs to help him salvage the night.)
• Sings “The Ballad of the River Chionthar,” an incredibly beautiful piece of his own composition telling of a young girl who slipped into the river and drowned. Each verse tells of some scene her body passes along the river, until the last verse speaks of how she passed through Baldur’s Gate and out into the sea.

JALESTER SILVERMANE

• Jalester is here to spy on the adventurers’ who made a rep for themselves rescuing Renaer. Once he’s assessed whether they (a) can be trusted or (b) pose a threat to Waterdeep, he’ll issue a report to the Open Lord.

YAGRA STONEFIST

• Challenging any burly-looking patrons to an arm wrestling competition, which she’s turned into a drinking game by taking a drink each time she wins.
• She claims a table in the corner and over the course of the evening she meets with a string of people – many of them sporting Zhentarim tattoos. She speaks quietly with them or slips them a piece of paper, and then they leave.
• She gets a crush on one of the male patrons tonight and does her best to take him home (or upstairs).

[FACTION CONTACT]

• Trigger the next faction mission.
• They’re here to meet with a different contact.

JARLAXLE

• If appearing as Captain Zord, he may bring along a number of Sea Maidens Faire carnies. They’ll bring strange creatures with them, perform a juggling act, do strange acrobatic tricks using the features of the tavern, and so forth.
• If appearing as a different fake identity, it’s more likely he’ll just quietly ensconce himself somewhere and observe the PCs, trying to get a measure of them.
• If appearing as himself, he’s here to negotiate: He wants something from the PCs in the Grand Game (information, a service), and he’s willing to bargain.

FACTION RESPONSE TEAM

• Keeping the tavern under observation from outside.
• Delivering a message from their faction (most likely to arrange a meeting).
• Staging a hit on the PCs, most likely in retaliation for their actions.
• Staging a heist, most likely targeting the Stone of Golorr and/or the Eyes.

PATRON TOPICS/AGENDAS – RENAER & FRIENDS

RENAER NEVEREMBER

• Requests an update on their investigation into Dalakhar’s murder (and the reasons behind it).
• Introduces them to some of his friends (roll on the “Renaer’s Friends” table).
• Invites the PCs to a party at Brandarthall.

VAJRA SAFAHR, THE BLACKSTAFF

• Lights have been seen in Kolat Towers, an old abandoned wizard’s tower in the Southern Ward. Despite everything that’s happening, she’s going to have to find time to check it out: Reoccupied wizard’s haunts are trouble more often than not.
• She knows uncomfortably too much about whatever the PCs’ last op was, although she doesn’t actually use their names.
• Tries to recruit the PCs into Force Grey. (Or, if the PCs actions have not distinguished them in this way, she sets a Force Grey member to keep watch on them.)

LARAELRA “ELRA” HARSARD

• She’s come to check out the “fiery-tempered temptress” who’s playing fast and loose with Renaer’s heart.
• Debriefing a Force Grey agent whose mission went disastrously. (Could be used to hook the PCs into doing a Force Grey faction mission – completing the failed mission – even if they aren’t members of Force Grey.)
• Her old friend Meloon Wardragon seems to be avoiding her lately and she’s worried about it. She doesn’t know what she could have done to alienate him.

OSCO SALIBUCK

• Has just returned from an expedition to the Tomb of Galari, an Archmage of Ancient Netheril. Young Harchan Roaringhorn led the expedition, clearly seeking something of import. (Osco does not know what; and it’s clear that Harchan was unsuccessful in whatever his aim was.)
• He has ordered one of every single liquor in the tavern, lined them up on the bar, and is working his way through them one by one. He is offering his (increasingly incoherent) critiques of each one at the top of his lungs.
• Lord Tylandar Roaringhorn is celebrating his seventieth birthday on the Roaringhorn estates in Amphail. Osco will be leaving Waterdeep for a couple of weeks (probably closer to a month), and he wants to have one last big party before he goes.

LORD TORLYN WANDS

• Lord Terras, who has had a feud with the Wands ever since Torlyn’s sister turned down his proposal of marriage, has filed yet another civil suit claiming that guests staying at the Wands’ ancestral hunting lodge have crossed over onto his property. He filed the suit in the Court of Amphail, just to make it more of a headache for Torlyn to defend it.
• Recently acquired an alchemical concoction that was supposed to counteract the effects of strong drink… and got himself into rather a spot of trouble at the Grinning Lion (a tavern in the North Ward). He drank far too much zzar (a fortified sherry with an orange color and an almondy scent), ate far too many fried eels, and woke up in an alley in the South Ward next to a snoring troll.
• Quietly reading The Salt of the Abyss by Ableworth Dirkley while sipping tea in the corner.

EIRUK WESKUR

• One of the journeyman under his watch had a teleport spell go awry. If anyone happens to visit an interdimensional pocket and happens to see the poor fellow, please let him know.
• Looking for Vajra: She was supposed to be here tonight and he’s concerned that she isn’t keeping the appointment.
• He’s gained a nasty scar across one cheek: One of the apprentices of the Order of Magists let a spell get out of control.

HARUG SHIELDSUNDER

• Has brought half a dozen dwarven tunnel workers from the Cellarers’ & Plumbers’ Guild to check out the new tavern.
• Malaerigo Harsard, Guild Master of the Cellarers’ & Plumbers’ Guild, has announced a steep rate hike in the guild’s dues. There’s a great deal of discontent in the rank-and-file, particularly among the dwarves.
• It’s the anniversary of his nephew’s death: He orders six dwarven ales (one for each year since Dorn’s death) and drinks them one by one. (Others who knew Dorn – like Laraelra, for example – may join in.)

PARLEK LATERIFF

• Recently acquired Sister Argutara’s Telestic Tome of the Draconic Tribes. Waxes rhapsodic about it.
• Comparing recent acquisitions with Lord Torlyn Wands.
• Arguing with Rishaal over the inconsistencies between Arturo’s Moonsea Atlas and Arienthil’s Journeys in the Moonshae Isles. (Parlek is convinced that Arienthil edited her accounts in order to gloss over or conceal various sites of importance she had encountered. He has an elaborate conspiracy theory suggesting, for example, that she was aware of a huge vein of black gold, a rare Feydark ore which is found in deposits throughout the Moonshae Isles and sparks intermittent “black gold rushes” when they turn up.)

MELOON WARDRAGON

• Challenges patrons to an arm-wrestling contest.
• Under the influence of the intellect devourer, asks probing questions regarding the Grand Game hoping to glean actionable intelligence from the PCs or their associates.
• PCs might notice he has a little purple fluid leaking out of his nose. (Potentially revealing the presence of the intellect devourer.)
• Speaks of how his hometown, Loudwater, has come under the control of the Zhentarim. The current High Lord, Telbor Zazrek, is a well-paid puppet of the Zhentarim and, through him, the Black Network maintains a stranglehold on the town. Any supplies not provided by the Zhentarim are punitively taxed and the cost of living in the town has skyrocketed.

FLOON BLAGMAAR

• He came here to meet with a pair of lovely brunettes, but now he needs help: They’re sitting over there in the corner – don’t look! I’m supposed to just be ordering drink, but I recognize one of them as being the wife of Lord Elamyr Belabranta. If Lord Elamyr finds out, he’ll send a griffon to eat Floon. (The Belabratas breed griffons for the City Watch.)
• His friend Bruzmyr Seerambra can offer a much better deal on the cost of liquor and ale than the Vintners’ Guild.
• His friend Riklyn Harvester has been transformed into an orange tabby cat by an irate sorcerer who was upset that Riklyn was trying to pick up a girl at the Old Skull Tavern. He’s got Riklyn with him (meow!) and he’s hoping the PCs can help turn him back. (Floon is mistaken: The cat is just a cat.)

Go to Part 5: Trollskull Patrons

The Forgotten Realms suffer cataclysms to explain why the world changes from one edition of D&D to the next.

This means that the transitions between editions are canonical in the setting.

Therefore, if you run a time travel scenario in Faerun, you must swap the edition you’re using as you go backwards into the past.

Do you redesign the PCs for the previous edition? If so, then they adapt to the time period.

Or do you just use their current stats and try to interpret them through the lens of the previous edition? They’re out of place in time. What does that feel like to the characters?

And how do the jagged edges resolve? There are no rules for using Hit Dice to recover hit points in 1st Edition, so can 5th Edition characters even heal in the 14th century? Can 4th Edition clerics (with spells that trigger the target’s Hit Dice) heal NPCs back then?

If you go far enough back in Faerunian history, though, things start getting really weird: You blow past the OD&D singularity and find yourself in an epoch of history ungoverned by the rules of any roleplaying game.

History books make it sound like the world was a fully functioning place, but that’s just a facade of narrative. In reality, the people of this epoch are rote automatons merely simulating the actions of a civilization. They are little different from a colony of ants or a hive of termites.

The only people possessed of a semblance of sentience are those leading military operations, for the world is governed by the the rules of Strategos N.

Does this work both ways? Are the PCs beacons of sentience causing automatons to flock to their presence, becoming military leaders by default?

Or is it the opposite? The PCs find their free will draining away and must either escape this epoch or attract an army of followers in order to grant themselves sentience?

Even further back, the rules become cruder yet. The terrain itself seems to lose cohesion, as it were built of molded sand. The economies of civilizations are no longer modeled, and the world becomes a gray veil of nonentity except for the bright beacons of meaningless wars.

Go to Part 1

PATRON TABLES

D20	PATRON
1	Tally Fellbranch (Bent Nail)
2	Embric & Avi (Steam and Steal)
3	Fala Lefaliir (Corellon's Crown)
4	Vincent Trench (Tiger's Eye)
5	Rishaal the Page-Turner (Book Wyrm)
6	Renaer Neverember
7-8	Renaer's Friends (see sub-table)
9	Meloon Wardragon
10	Floon Blagmaar
11	Hammond Kraddoc (Vintners' Guild)
13	Broxley Fairkettle (Innkeepers)
13	Ulkoria Stonemarrow
14	Mattrim "Threestrings" Mereg
15	Jalester Silvermane
16	Yagra Stonefist
17	[Faction Contact]
18	[Campaign NPC] (or reroll)
19	Jarlaxle (or reroll)
20	Faction Response Team (or reroll)

FACTION CONTACT: This result should be keyed to the PCs’ contact for whatever faction they end up doing faction missions for. (If they become members of multiple factions, randomly determine or choose one.)

CAMPAIGN NPC: This slot is left open for adding an NPC that the players like from other parts of the campaign. (I’m currently using this slot for Valetta & Nim.) This can includes characters from the Renaer’s Friends table below if the PCs seem to have forged a strong relationship with them and you’d like to increase the likelihood of them showing up. (Of course, you can always arbitrarily decide that so-and-so will be dropping by the tavern that night.)

OTHER MODIFICATIONS: Swap out other characters that aren’t resonating with your players and add NPCs who they’ve formed relationships with.

D20	PATRON - RENAER'S FRIENDS
1-6	Renaer Neverember + Roll Again
7-8	Vajra Safahr (the Blackstaff)
9-10	Laraelra "Elra" Harsard
11-12	Osco Salibuck
13-14	Lord Torlyn Wands
15	Eiruk Weskur
16	Harug Shieldmaster
17	Parlek Lateriff
18	Meloon Wardragon
19	Floon Blagmaar
20	[Faction Spy Watching Renaer]

FACTION SPY: Determine faction randomly or choose appropriately based on the events in the campaign so far.

EVENTS

• A spontaneous arm-wrestling competition breaks out.
• A local kenku street gang comes into the tavern. They try to sell traveler’s dust to the patrons. (Traveler’s Dust: Tiny roseate crystals. A single grain is usually dropped into the eye, where it dissolves. Those using it are said to be walking the crimson road. Those using traveler’s dust often have trembling hands, slurred speech, and eyes the color of blood. Creates a euphoric feeling paired to a sensation of the world slowing down around you.)
• PCs walk in to find a horse standing in the middle of the common room. No one can explain how it got there or who owns it.
• A patron slips a drug into a drink before returning to their own table.
• A 12-year-old pickpocket named Stannis is working the crowd. His handler, a half-orc named Sabeen, is waiting outside.
• A portal opens in the middle of the tavern. An elven wizard named Kyser Tameno walks out, orders a drink, and goes back through the portal. (He might become a regular.)
• The City Watch makes an arrest on the premises.
• Volo shows up and would like to make arrangements for a signing of Volo’s Guide to Monsters. Also has a number of questions regarding the haunting of Trollskull Manor for Volo’s Guide to Spirits and Specters.
• Staff Event (e.g., the star elf triplets float up to the ceiling and a spontaneous light show erupts; after a few minutes they float back down and resume service as if nothing happened)

Go to Part 4: Patron Topics & Agendas

The Hero’s Journey is over-hyped, largely because so many people using it really just mean, “I watched Star Wars once and i thought it was pretty dope.” And also because it’s an example of people using a critical apparatus designed to analyze content as a tool to create content, and the result of that is usually poor and often results in cookie-cutter narratives.

But the Hero’s Journey is more than “I watched Star Wars once and I thought it was pretty dope,” and it’s worth checking out Campbell’s original writing on the subject. Campbell’s treatment is very complex and made up of many modular parts that can be slotted into the macro-structure of Departure-Initiation-Return.

Which brings us to Captain Marvel.

The story in Captain Marvel does fall into the basic pattern of the Hero’s Journey. But it’s a really cool example of it because the non-linear presentation of that story deliberately obscures the Hero’s Journey, and then unifies its revelation to the audience with the hero’s revelation of self, thus narratively unifying both Crossings of the Threshold.

Let me unpack that.

The opening beats of the Hero’s Journey are the Departure:

The Call to Adventure, in which Carol is transformed by the explosion: “The hero goes forward in his adventure until he comes to the ‘threshold guardian’ at the entrance to the zone of magnified power.” The threshold guardian in this case is Yon-Rogg. Carol defeats the guardian as trickster, outwitting him and targeting the power core instead of engaging in direct confrontation.

The Belly of the Whale, in which Carol is brainwashed by the Kree: The belly of the whale represents the separation of the hero’s known world and self. In this case, Carol literally leaves her entire world (and her entire self) behind.

(Note that the “Meeting the Mentor” beat sometimes found in the Departure is in, fact, absent from this particular Hero’s Journey because there is no Campbellian mentor figure in the story.)

I’m not going to analyze every step of the Hero’s Journey in the film, because the key point is what happens at the opposite end of the structure: The Hero gains the Ultimate Boon and then Returns to the World they left behind, Crossing the Return Threshold and becoming the Master of Two Worlds. My point is that these final beats and the Crossing of the Return Threshold are narratively unified to the original Crossing of the Threshold because the moment in which Carol crosses the threshold is revealed to us in this moment and it is, in fact, Carol recovering and, importantly, ACCEPTING and EMBRACING her memories that signifies the Crossing of the Return Threshold.

This is an incredibly clever and very intricate use of the Hero’s Journey, greatly intensifying its impact by folding it back on itself. You see the beginning and the end simultaneously, like an ouroborus wyrm swallowing its own tail.

But the film also does something else even more unusual and clever with the Hero’s Journey structure: The entire Kree psyops campaign targeting Carol is structured as a dark inversion of the Hero’s Journey. In this structure, the first meeting of the Supreme Intelligence is positioned as Meeting the Mentor. Being captured by the Skrulls is the primary guardian of the threshold, and the Earth is positioned as the “unknown and dangerous realm” in which Carol’s adventure takes place. At the end of the film, the Supreme Intelligence tries to position Carol’s refusal to come back to the Kree as a Refusal of the Return (another classic beat in the Hero’s Journey), with the implication being that she must claim the Ultimate Boon (of the tesseract) and Cross the Return Threshold by coming back to the Kree.

It’s only by rejecting this dark inversion of the Hero’s Journey that Carol can achieve her true apotheosis.